What Makes Beyonce Knowles Creating A Brand

Creating a brand for yourself in this world cannot be one of the easiest tasks out there; however, Beyoncé makes it seem quite simple. Knowles is so well-known that you don’t even have to know her last name in order to understand who Queen Bey is. Beyoncé Knowles is known for the following roles: singer, songwriter, producer, actress, dancer, and humanitarian. With a presence on Facebook since 2009, Knowles has accumulated an impressive 63,684,096 likes on her profile from her many fans of differing traits across the globe. Not everyone who has liked her page on this social media site chooses to follow her every post, but the more dedicated fans (also known as the Beyhive) have the chance to get a more in-depth view of their favorite celebrity.
Through the posts Beyoncé makes on Facebook, she is able to successfully showcase aspects of her career through an appeal to kairos and ethos; give insight on what she believes is important using arguments of ethos, pathos and logos; and displaying pathos when there are posts that are more revolved around her personal life. The first thing that one would see while visiting any profile on Facebook is the cover photo and profile picture and Beyoncé’s page is no different. The cover photo stands out because it is a completely black background with the word “Tidal”, “tidal.com”, and the hashtag “TIDALforALL”. Having such bold words creates an intrigue in the viewer to see what Tidal is and why Knowles found it so important to dedicate her entire cover picture to argue kairos and promote the website. Tidal is a site that was made for music-loving people to be able to listen to music and watch music videos from many of their favorite artists with no advertisement for a monthly fee. In turn, this also told me that her cover photo was appealing to ethos and further showing that she is first and foremost a musician that still wants you to buy her albums rather than use a medium such as Pandora to listen to her music for free. Another appeal was made in this instance in regards to ethos because Knowles’s husband, Jay-Z, is the major owner of the streaming service along with Beyoncé. Secondly, one would notice her profile picture appealing to kairos because it is a picture of her most recent album cover. Therefore, Beyoncé cleverly uses the first two things you see on her page to inexpensively promote her music and her brand in a virtual setting that more than sixty-three million people will see. Another way Knowles showcases her career advances and appeals to kairos is through her pictures of her dance rehearsals, by sharing videos of songs she has released, and making posts about the concerts she performs in.
Showing the dance side to her performance, Knowles posted photos of her and her back-up dancers rehearsing for upcoming shows on September 25. This argues kairos because it makes the fans seeing the pictures wonder why she would be posting pictures of her rehearsals. Establishing that she had just produced a new song, Knowles used kairos once again to promote her most recently released song “Runnin’ (Lose it All)” on September 17. Lastly, on September 26 and 27, Beyoncé posted pictures of her performance at the Global Citizen Festival in New York City. Not only was this a post to kairos, but also to ethos because the concert was for a good
cause. In retrospect, one of the most important aspects of Knowles’s Facebook page is her use of the profile to talk about the humanitarian work she is part of such as Chime for Change. In a post on September 16, 2015, Beyoncé said, “As the co-founder of Chime for Change I am committed to fighting for issues facing girls and women all over the world.” This was accompanied with a picture of women in a third-world country filling bottles of water with the fact: in total girls and women spend 140 million hours a day collecting water, preventing them from fully participating in society. It is safe to say that not only is this an appeal to pathos, but also ethos and logos. Pulling on her fans’ heartstrings makes it much easier for the people seeing this post to get involved with the Chime for Change project. This is because people are more likely to become charitable when they feel emotionally attached to the people or ideas the charity project is for. In addition to pathos, this also appeals to ethos because it further shows that Knowles is a woman that believes in the empowerment of women all over much like some of her songs also promote such as “Run the World (Girls)” which is an anthem for the equality of women and tells them to never change who they are to fit into the culturally accepted version of a woman. Furthermore, the picture containing statistics on the subject appeals towards logos because it is hard to argue with the evidence that is given. Another event she largely participated with and displayed on her Facebook page was her contributions for the humanitarian crises around the world. World Humanitarian Day was August 19; Knowles created a post with the hashtag “BeyGOODHaiti” to show a specific humanitarian crisis she was affiliated with in Haiti. Applying to kairos, the post told people she was again selling her “Bey Good” shirts in order to raise money and awareness for the cancer patients in St. Damien. These contributions were made because Beyoncé visited St. Damien Pediatric Hospital in Haiti in May of 2015, and found the hospital was in serious need of funding so that the patients there could receive the full treatment that they deserved. With the help of the Beyhive and her fans’ shared desires to make a difference, Knowles was able to donate enough money to the hospital so the children could receive the oncology treatment they needed. Therefore, appealing to kairos in this scenario was a wise decision because it spread awareness for the cause; allowing her to make such a generation donation to the sick children. This also shows, again, an appeal to ethos that Beyoncé is truly a person who cares about the well-being of others and she has a genuine heart. However, not only is Knowles’s profile about the activities she does and events she partakes in, but the page mainly argues pathos when posting about the people she cares about such as her family and friends.
A picture posted on September 23 shows Beyoncé and her daughter, Blue, enjoying a family day out on the water. This could be an argument of ethos showing credibility to the fact that she has a song titled “Blue” in honor of her child. However, the true purpose of this post is to show that she has a daughter that means the world to her which is an argument of pathos. Likewise, in an earlier post on September 17 Knowles posted a picture with her husband out on a boat. This too argues pathos because putting a celebrity into the category of wife or mother makes them seem more relatable which is a necessity when you want your fan-base to grow and also for the existing fans to stay interested. Another post that’s main purpose was to argue pathos was a post on September 11 that was a picture of New York with two beams of light shining in place of the Twin Towers along with the hashtag “NeverForget”. While it could be said that this appeals to kairos, the overall takeaway is a since of patriotism and a deep sorrow for the many lives that were taken too soon 14 years ago that will forever be in the hearts of the people of the United
States.
In conclusion, Knowles uses her Facebook profile to tell her fans what is going on not only within the confines of her career, but also what she is doing in her spare time. Beyoncé uses kairos to tell her fans about important events that are furthering her career, she argues ethos to show that her character is true to what she displays through her songs, and she appeals to pathos so that the Beyhive can feel a stronger emotional connection to what she believes in. On the other hand, as for appealing to an argument of logos, there are few but not many instances when Knowles has a post that can be associated with that rhetorical appeal. The reasoning for this may be that her Facebook profile is more for the purpose of making a closer connection with her fans that have liked her page rather than convince people why they should like her page. All in all, Queen Bey posts on her page in order to interact with her many adoring fans through a medium that is familiar with a wide range of people much like her fan base consists of a wide range of ages and cultures.